A History of the Devil (Hardcover)

~ Gerald Messadie (Author) "For the Westerner, the Pacific is deeply is deeply confounding..." (more)
Key Phrases: religion romaine, heavenly council, Old Testament, Ahura Mazda, Native American (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Now that God's biography has been written, by Jack Miles, it's time to give the Devil his due. Messadie's book is the finest of the legion of recent books released about the archfiend and his cohorts. Using a comparative and phenomenological approach, the author traces the idea of the Devil from ancient Greece and India to contemporary Western culture. What emerges from Messadie's explorations is that the Devil is a very recent concept, arising primarily out of Zoroastrianism in Persia in the sixth century B.C. In that religion, a personified evil being is coexistent and coeval with a personification of the good, and Messadie examines how that dualism has slipped into Christianity, in particular. Thus the author concludes, on the basis of careful historical study, that the Devil does not exist in societies where the need for a force opposing the good is absent. Finally, Messadie aptly demonstrates how people in contemporary culture, in the absence of the personification of evil, use the Devil to vilify their enemies and to promote hatred.

Copyright 1996 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Given the great success of books about angels, is it any surprise that the Fallen Angel himself, the devil, wants to horn in on the territory? Actually, Messadie's book is a comparative historical study of the development of the concept of the devil in different cultures, from ancient Oceania to 20th-century Europe and America. While the idea of the devil as evil personified is often absent from Eastern cultures, such an idea is common to many Western cultures. Yet Messadie's conclusions call into question the existence in the late 20th century of a personified evil figure whose presence often becomes the pretext for human abdication of moral responsibility. Massadie's highly engaging and provocative cultural history is essential for most libraries.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 377 pages
• Publisher: Kodansha America (December 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568360819
• ISBN-13: 978-1568360812
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,461,397 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Review of the Reviews and of the book, February 20, 2004

By	"quetzal23x" (Napa Valley, CA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A History of the Devil (Paperback)

I've read the book; and subsequently have read the earlier reviews on Amazon.
This is the best book on comparative religions I've read (over 3/4s of a century). Having been educated by the same robed priests as the author, and having subscribed (without the benefit of exposure to a classical world as he has) to a structured religion for more years than he, I found much empathy with M. Messadie's book. Having read extensively in other "religions", I believe that this is, on an objective exploratory and historical outline basis, the best of the bunch.
The reviews that take exception to the fact that Messadie doesn't speak to horror movies, or satanic cults at length may have been misled by the title of the book, but have little substantial critique to contribute. His comparison of Christ to Zoroaster is another example of the extension of myths that can be read well back into primitive cultures. That is his point...not to suggest that one is the avatar of the other.
The central issue is Good and Evil...and the fact that structured religion can't exist without positing good and bad before proceeding to preach how to behave. Good and bad doesn't appear to have existed (excepting in the sense of man-defined acceptable behavior) until it was introduced into the middle east about 700 BC. Messadie has done a superb job making one think about this fundamental concept.

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Devil That Doesn't Exist, February 6, 2005

By	Chris Luallen (Nashville, Tennessee) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: A History of the Devil (Paperback)

This book is a cross-cultural examination of how different societies have attempted to explain evil. Messadie describes the traditional religions of India, China, ancient Greece and Rome, Africa and the pre-Colombian Americas as having a generally more unitary and tolerant theology. Meanwhile, Western religions, especially Christianity and Islam, are shown to be dualistic, believing that God and the Devil are waging an ongoing struggle for world domination and control of the human soul.

Messadie traces the origin of this mythical fallacy back to the ancient Persian religion of Zoroastrianism. It is here, through a God named Ahura Mazda and a Devil named Ahriman, that we find the most important theological foundation for the dualism that is to later soil Western religion.

Interestingly, Messadie makes a convincing case that in the Old Testament Satan is generally shown to be acting in accord with the wishes of God. For example, the suffering Satan causes Job, so that Job may be forced to demonstrate his faith, is done with God's blessing.

But it is in the New Testament that Satan is continually depicted as the enemy of God. This Christian obsession with defeating the Devil is shown to have tragic historical consequences. For example, Messadie writes about how church and state authorites conspired in the Middle Ages to imprison and murder various such "Devil inspired" heretics as the Cathars in order to maintain religious and and political control while also profiting from the property they confiscated from the victims. He even suggests that it was the Inquisition that served as the ultimate model for the Nazi and Stalinist legal systems.

Personally, I think that the Western religious belief in dualism is one of its primary theological errors. Messadie seems to share a similar viewpoint. In fact, this book is a well written and thoroughly researched effort to show how this irrational belief in something that doesn't exist - "the Devil" - has historically caused, and continues to cause, immense suffering and tragedy.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars good, but somewhat misrepresented., August 24, 2005

By	Matthew the Raven (Wisconsin) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A History of the Devil (Paperback)

I felt a little mislead by the title and description of this book. I thought it was going to be a history of the development of the idea of Satan and demonology. However, it was more like a survey of world religious mythology with emphasis on the role of evil.

However, it was a good read. I learned a lot from him and enjoyed it. Anyone interested in world religions and thr role of evil in mythology ought to check it out.